Toe-to-Toe
by Sanguine Dreams
Summary: "She rode a dragon into battle and burned down the entire country; then she jumped into a volcano. It was so romantic." Looking into his pale eyes, Korra realized that Jinora's volcano idea had merit. Just without the romance. AU


Hey guys, I'm still kicking! Haven't been able to stay away from the fanfiction world...not really. I'm too hooked on the imagination and inspiring works I find here! This is a whole new fandom for me completely though...

I'm just too much of a sucker for unconventional pairings. When I first started watching Avatar: Legend of Korra, I was a sucker for KorraXMako; but as time progressed, the pairing just seemed so…_bland_. There wasn't any fire, or sexual tension of _any sorts_. Then episode 5 rolled around, and within ten seconds of meeting that sly bastard Tahno, I nearly screamed with glee at Korra and his little banter. Those few seconds of the show oozed way more tension than the entire first book between Mako and her. I've been hooked ever since.

I just wanted to note that in this fanfiction, Mako and Korra have **not** admitted their undying love for each other just yet. Korra has, but Mako is still with Asami. The kiss did happen, however.

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**Toe-to-Toe**

Summary: "She rode a dragon into battle and burned down the entire country; then she jumped into a volcano. It was so romantic." Looking into his pale eyes, Korra realized that Jinora's volcano idea had merit. Just without the romance. AU

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Chapter one – Breathe

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It was too much, yet not enough. Too much of _everything_. There was too much fire; too much water; too much earth; but not enough air. She needed to breathe; to control her movements and finally find the pulse of power she knew was beneath her fingertips. She had to. She was the Avatar.

Furrowing her brows in concentration, Korra took a deep breath and tried to calm herself before the forest. Tenzin had always told her to be flexible. _Like the air_. The air surrounds, weaves around its hindrances, stopped by nothing. She needed to be able to breeze through realizing that if option A wasn't taking her to the end, there were over twenty other options she could take. _She needed to breathe_.

Releasing a calming breath, Korra closed her eyes and willed her body to relax and took a tentative step forward. She needed to be able to feel the trees, the leaves, and the ground surrounding her without causing injury to herself…_or the trees_. Shifting her legs around what she assumed was the thin trunk of a birch tree, Korra began to maneuver herself quickly into the forest. She tried to concentrate on the feel of the plants around her and not the shadows flickering behind her closed lids.

She didn't make it very far until she slammed her left shoulder into one. Muttering a few choice curse words, Korra opened her eyes and glared at the tree that definitely shouldn't have jumped in her way. Stomping her way out of the many branches before her, she wondering inwardly exactly _why_ she didn't just burn all those branches and make her life easier.

_Oh right, I'd be running out of places to practice,_ she thought darkly. It wasn't that she didn't _want to be_ on the Air Temple Island—okay, maybe she didn't want to be pestered endlessly about training and _how_ she should be training—she was just suffocated. Between practicing and bending three elements, she needed to finally understand how to air bend naturally without a set of guidelines. Rules made her listless, and wasn't airbending supposed to be freeing? She wanted to come into terms with her skills her own way. What happened during Amon's reign of terror couldn't happen again. Blue eyes narrowed at the thought.

Desperate people, innocent people, and the terrors of being exposed to the darker streaks of life made people do crazy things.

"If it isn't the Uh-vatar," a smooth voice drawled, greeting Korra as she exited her impromptu training area. "What brings you off you that little island, darling?" Korra glared at the man standing in front of her. Tahno stood proudly with his arms crossed and a raised eyebrow. He looked nothing like the depressed man she consoled at the police station. Gone were his tired bags, hair dampened by days of not washing, and the lingering smell of alcohol. In fact, the man standing in front of her looked as healthy as he ever did. There was no slump in the shoulders, no slur in his speech, and no dirt caking his hair. This was Tahno of the White Fall Wolfbats. Pretty boy extraordinaire.

"That isn't your business," Korra growled, "What do you want, pretty boy?"

"Just in the neighborhood, and I thought I saw a little girl lost in the woods," he laughed darkly to himself and met her eyes. "I guess I should thank you for keeping your promise."

_You gotta get him for me._

It felt like centuries had gone by when she fought him during the finals of the pro-bending match. Yet, she couldn't believe only the span of five moons elapsed.

She nodded wordlessly, unsure of what to say. _You're welcome? But not actually; it was Tarrlok was the one who made sure Amon wasn't coming back. _She winced at her thoughts, guilty for taking the sacrifice of his death so lightly. Sure he wasn't a saint, but he tried to repent and redeem himself. _More like take the easy way out for himself and his brother._ They wouldn't be haunted by the terrors every time they closed their eyes. There were no nightmares where they were now. There was just nothingness.

"Yea, I guess," Korra sighed and looked downward at her boots, already growing weary of the conversation at hand. Even months after the fall of the Equalists, it was all anyone ever talked about. The Avatar saved us, people cheered. The Avatar did it. Only the Avatar could have. Avatar, avatar, avatar.

"Where's your boyfriend?" He was referring to Bolin. The sarcastic comment made Korra quickly look up. She had zoned out and nearly forgot he was there. _If that was even possible._ His being screamed recognition when he was this full of himself. Even at Narook's Seaweed Noodlery, she couldn't help but stare at him beyond Bolin's head. She should have been absorbed in the taste of home, but his presence wasn't something to be ignored. It put her on edge back then, as it did now.

She noticed him at the police headquarters too. He was slumped over the bench and he looked so unsure of everything that Korra was so sure that it wasn't him. Tahno of the White Falls Wolfbats wasn't a man that could be broken. He was too cocky for that. Too sure of himself—of his abilities—to be so broken.

"He wasn't… isn't my boyfriend," Korra cocked her head upwards and met his pale blue eyes. He smirked at her admittance, preparing to gauge her on with a verbal spar. Challenge wasn't something he found easily. On the ring, his benefactor was relentless in bribing the referees, but who was he to judge? An easy way out was an easy way out, even if it wasn't the most ethical one.

But after that spar with Korra in the noodle bar, he knew she wasn't one for rules either. The only reason she held back from sucker punching him in the gut was because her will to win was stronger than her anger. She didn't want to be eliminated from a fight she worked so hard to gain. So she whistled for that overgrown mutt for back up. Of course he was startled, he didn't expect a girl like her to have a polar bear dog, and it had been a while since he saw one in person.

"Wasn't? Isn't? Girly, that's comparing seal jerky with walrus jerky," he laughed quietly to himself. "Regardless, since you're obviously alone, why don't you join me for lunch?" He had wanted to thank her in his own way. For seeking out the revenge he wasn't allowed to, because back then, for him, a life without bending wasn't much of a life at all. It took nearly two months for him to pull himself out of his self-pity. If anything, Tahno was not a man who gave up easily. He was sure his waterbending would return eventually; he could feel it lingering in the deepest corner of his chi, but he had no way of accessing it, but at least it was still there. He just needed to do something to kill the time before he found a way to regain it.

"I'm not hungry," Korra bit out. It wasn't that she hated him. In fact, what she felt towards him could borderline annoyance and sympathy—though now she realized he _definitely _didn't deserve it (the sympathy, that is). He didn't give her a good enough reason to hate him, not like Amon did. She just didn't want to eat with someone she was _supposed _to be rivals with. _Rivalry can't exist. Not when he couldn't bend anymore,_ she thought. But he was still an asshole, through and through.

Her stomach decided to growl in protest. A warm blush formed across her tanned cheeks, as the paler man raised an eyebrow.

"Relax, little girl. I won't bite too hard." Korra returned an eyebrow raise of her own and smirked. "Sure, but you're paying."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

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He grimaced as seaweed noodle bits flew towards his cup of water. Staring at the girl seated across him, he quiet stirred his spoon inside his tentacle soup.

"Gods, this is so good," Korra half moaned and half slurped. It had been too long since she last came into this restaurant. Eating food native from her Southern Tribe wasn't something she had at the top of her "to-do" list. The majority of it was filled with Avatar responsibilities, mainly: how to airbend. Her waterbending wasn't as up to snuff as she would like to be, preferring to play with fire most of her life. Fire was directly connected to her emotions and everybody knew that if anything, Korra was passionate. _About everything she did._

Tahno's spoon stilled just millimeters away from his lips and glanced at the Southern Tribe native, seemingly lost in her own world. Lowering his spoon back into his bowl, he coughed lightly to catch her attention. And to stop those ridiculous sounds that were coming out of her mouth.

"Mruat dro ro runt?"Korra asks through a mouth full of noodles. She swallows dramatically and downs the cup of water sitting idly besides her right hand.

"I'd love to runt, _Korra_." Her name sensually rolls off his tongue, and she stiffens at the pounding she hears in her ears. She knows she's blushing.

Shaking her head to clear up any thoughts, Korra tries to give the former pro-bender the haughtiest look she could muster. "Don't flatter yourself, _little boy_. I wanted to know what you wanted."

"I want to show you how much of me isn't a _little_." His lips quirks up in amusement when she narrows her eyes, but doesn't react to the bait. "Is it too much to ask for a little company? Hmmmm?"

He was teasing her, she knew. It was what he did. He would goad her on endlessly, knowing fairly well that she was quick-tempered and acted upon instincts than any actual plans or thoughts. That was how she lived her life and how she had managed to survive for so long, barely.

"From the Avatar, yes," she says with a snort.

"What were you doing in the edge of the city anyways, little girl?" If he sounded worried, his next sentence definitely put a damper on any of those suspicions. "Don't you know that there are _big bad_ wolves on the prowl?" He murmured looking at her through his ridiculously thick, long lashes.

"I can handle a couple of dogs trying to be something they're not," she stared at Tahno, long and hard, trying to hint at _exactly _what she thought of him. "Besides, I was training." Ordering a bowl of two-headed fish soup—_just because she wasn't paying_—as a vengeance of sorts, Korra clenched her fist when she saw him smiling knowingly at her.

He was mocking her!

"What?" she growled.

"I didn't know slamming into trees was a training regimen of sorts." He looked down at his cooling soup and picked up his spoon once again. The warm liquid flowed smoothly down his throat, and he felt it slide towards his core. Noticing a small strip of noodle stuck to his spoon, he contemplated on how he should retrieve it. Slurping was out of the question: Tahno _did not_ slurp. It was unbecoming of a man of his reputation. Slurping was something reserved for the Avatar and the group of her uncivilized friends.

"I was making progress on avoiding obstacles with my eyes closed," Korra quickly defended.

"Oh?" He was still staring at her with those pale, pale eyes that almost seemed silver from where she was sitting.

"Yes! If you hadn't noticed, I made it-" her words died in her throat as she watched a pink tongue stroke the insides of the spoon Tahno held before his mouth. Retreating with a piece of noodle from his tentacle soup, the tongue darted out again to lick his lower lip. He was still watching her. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as she cleared her throat and continued with a shake. "-I made it close to the Boab Prison Tree."

A bowl of two-headed fish soup was placed before her, and she quickly looked up to the waiter to give him her thanks. Narook gave her a smile, glanced at Tahno, and gave her a knowing wink. Suddenly, she didn't feel all that hungry anymore.

"Ah, I see. Well, if you ever want some pointers, my offer of _private lessons_ still stands, darling," placing his cup of water down, Tahno let his smirk grow bigger as he gave a wave to a couple of women staring openly at him. "I might not be able to bend water anymore, but I can assure you…I still have more than enough lessons to _keep you occupied_."

If he weren't so sleazy, Korra might have considered his offer. But, she didn't think working with a man who was the definition of sex would have been a good idea. Everything he said was laced with a sexual innuendo and, even though she wasn't inexperienced—she had to have confidence in her abilities if she were able to initiate a kiss with Mako—she definitely wasn't up to par with the former Wolfbat. _Not if those rumors were anything to go by._ Besides, she didn't want Mako thinking that she wasn't available once he realized that he was, in fact, in love with her and not Asami.

"Thanks for the offer, pretty boy, but-", she almost choked on her water when she noticed a couple walk in, too engrossed with each other to notice her sitting in the far corner of the small eatery. Mako had his arm thrown around the slim shoulders of the Sato heiress. The woman in his arms laughed lightly and murmured something before reach up and pecking him on the corner of his mouth.

She was happy for her friend; she really was! But a part of her was still jealous, hurt, and a little more than mad at herself for urging the firebender to return to the dark haired beauty's side. The revelation of Asami's father was mainly her fault, after all. If she weren't the Avatar, if she weren't involved, Asami would probably be living happily in bliss within that ridiculously large estate of hers. She would have continued to be happy, and blissfully unaware of the dangers that lurked beneath her, literally.

And Mako…

He didn't seem to mind that he held some feelings that lurked deeper than friendship for the Avatar. He returned her kiss with equal abandon and heat. The kiss was passionate and full of unreleased feelings. She _knew_ he felt something for her, but once Bolin's feelings were put on the line and the pro-bending finals lurking around the corner, Mako seemed more eager than ever to snuff out whatever heat that was between them. Then the encounter with Amon, the tears, betrayals, and finally the relief…Mako had seemed to forget that the kiss ever happened.

Especially if the kiss he and Asami were sharing was anything to go by.

Gripping her cup with more force than necessary, Korra didn't notice the growl that escaped her. Her left eye twitched and an angry pout formed across her lips.

"My mistake. It seems that the firebender is…"he trailed off, knowing that he didn't need to finish. Korra shot him a look of annoyance and quickly raised her bowl of food. Finishing her soup in a few gulps, she slammed the bowl down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Thanks for the lunch. I'll see you around." She brushed past him and shot out the restaurant faster than usual.

Tahno shook his head lightly and allowed her to leave without a glance back. He smirked as he raised his glass of water to his lips. He had something over the little spite-fire now.

_I'll __definitely __be seeing you around._

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How was that for my first fanfiction in this fandom? I hope I didn't bore anyone yet…

Anyways, please review and let me know what you think or give me some suggestions like what you would like seeing happen between my favorite ATLA:LOK couple! Cheers!


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